There’s a bit of the Thames in many of us. I’ve lived alongside it, five doors upriver from the Tate Gallery, worked alongside it, sailed up the tidal bit, motored on the upriver bit, written about it, and messed about in boats all over it writes Peter Willis. The very word incites a frisson of interest. Even now, about 40 miles and at least three watersheds away from the nearest recognisable bit of the river, I find I live near the Thames Estuary – it stretches in a great arc of North Sea form Orford to the North Foreland, you know – and I feel pleased about that.
So this book can hardly fail to excite. It’s basically an anthology, or perhaps a sampler, of – as the title announces – writing about the Thames. Christina Hardyment, though credited as author, is as much its editor, selecting the passages and providing an amiable and knowledgeable linking commentary between them.
There are many familiar authors, some new (to me, notably John Eade), and even an old colleague, Steffan Meyric Hughes, makes an appearance. The book is divided into sections – writers, naturalists, boaters, bodies (mainly crime fiction) and others. Like the river itself there are inevitably some dull passages but also some delightful surprises. And the illustrations are marvellous. One to keep handy.
Bodlean Library £25
